Metal and plastic toy soldiers dug out from a mountain of unpainted bits with terrain and other wargaming staples. An occassional bit of art. But mainly "broken" dice and attempts at keeping my girls from painting pink camouflage, and my son from amassing too many dragons!...and convincing them that history is rather cool!

Friday, April 22, 2016

I had a lot of mail this week. I'll blame part on my birthday Thursday, but two packages really stood out for the coveted "Holy Heck that is cool" award.

I received this game mat from Deep Cut Studio in Lithuania as a prize draw from the latest Analog Hobbies Winter Painting Challenge. There was a lot of designs to choose from and I was sorely tempted to get the swamp for my Catachan jungle fighters or an urban one for Mercs and city fighting.

Although 3x3 is adequate for skirmish gaming, I decided to hold off on that until a new order and go 4x6 for bigger game use as well.

The colors are outstanding on the mat and I'm very happy with it. My spaceships look mighty fine against the spacescape. I fully intend on a 4x6 mat as well as it is always easier to confine movement to a smaller field when the opportunity to go bigger is there.

Shipping from Deep Cut Studio is very fast too, I'm still waiting for stuff ordered the same time from here in the states!

This design is deep space. There are 3 other space themes to choose from. Starfield, Nova, Nebula, and planets. A few variations with asteroids and such as well.

The other package I received was from Sylvain as I painted the most in the Scifi side duel. He deviously sent me some Ravenwing landspeeders from GW epic game.

They are beautiful. Now I have to find my box that holds my titans and 1st edition epic marines. I also have few IG in epic and a line on a few more. I guess I have a few contenders now for the next painting challenge! Did I really win!? ;)

I won't ponder the devious machinations of Sylvain for now as I have this really sweet games mat, a bunch of Star Wars ships and a son who wants to kick Vader's butt! ;)

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Adepticon is the first convention I've been to in some time. It is mainly scifi and the organizers evolved from a core of 40k players back when Gamesday used to be held in Chicago. Now it is a huge Scifi and fantasy wargaming scene but Bolt Action, Flames of War, Saga, and other games including Modern have a good sized foot print.

I meandered the halls as I did not register for seminars or tournaments and had a leisurely couple days of ogling all the eyecandy.

The above three photos show a table prepped for Wild West Exodus which is a Steam Punk Western. Lots of LED lights, source lighting, and laser cut MDF buildings including the train. Really nice board set up. The train and terrain were available for purchase too in the vendor hall.

Speaking of which, these are shots of the Laser cut kits. I usually only scratch build or use PDF, but this was a nice set up and pretty affordable. Each piece is designed for modular construction with removable walls and floors.

So much stuff, but perfect for skirmish. I wish I had stuff like this in the Necromundia days!

This is intended for Infinity, but I see no reason why Mercs or even 40k cannot enjoy a brawl across the set up.

They had painted the demo up and marked it for Infinity Ariadna forces. They even had console, becons, and scatter terrain. All was very movable and easy access.

The 40k tournament had a large display of orks vs imperial forces ( my photography butchered the pics)

Some old hands of former GW staffers had a huge participation game of War master in 28mm scale. All vintage models too!

I cannot remember this game, but it was a demo for a post apocalyptic game pulled from Fallout PC game.

Beasts of War had an impressive demo of Imperial Assault. The players had three stages one was the echo base hanger with the Millennium Falcon! The led lights were strung up and looked like cabling from the movies.

Rebel troops manned the trenches and launched snowspeeders

The fighting was intense in the trenches

The imperial players could have pounded the rebels with the scout walkers and AT-ATs, but with Vader and snow troopers, they all wanted to just get stuck in!

The AT-ATs and Millennium Falcon were from Hasbro Toys and the figures were all from the wiz kids games, but they did scale very well together.

Some more MDF terrain, but this was from the 40k/30k tournament and were set up as space hulk type battlefields.

This one was the most impressive of the lot.

Lots of battle mats in use and it made even rudimentary terrain pop!

Lots of brilliant brush work, there was so much to see!

This impressive work was intended as a prize draw. I belive both the army and display.

The display was big enough for a battle too!

The most beautiful Machine Cult army in attendance and there was many. Lots of 30k forces too.

I almost picked this up as the Rebels from the new Disney show have their ship now represented in X-Wing. This ship is to my son as the Millennium Falcon is to me.

I found the beast! The elusive and rare GW dragon was at the 28mm Warmaster game. A beautiful paint job on him too!

There was just a ton of classic GW fantasy minis in both forces and sweet vignettes like the tower with squig herders forcing a doom diver off the plank.

These next shots are from a massive pirate game from a group of traveling wargamers. They hit most all of the conventions and their game has been growing for 8 years.

There is just so much to see with scores of ships, islands and minis for all factions like the above shipwrecked pirates

Lots of smaller boats and vignettes like the pelican on the pilings.

Dock workers, slaves, British and French troops.

I did mention ships too! Wonderful details on them with buccaneers, sailors, and marines aplenty.

A couple of fortified islands with attendant warships and armed merchants.

Plenty of rocky deserted isles with buried treasure too.

Some small coves and jettys.

Even islanders to get in on the action. With their war boats organized by color for several participants.

Cargo, villagers and scatter terrain abound.

Plenty of period buildings from shops, houses, hovels, and huts.

A wealth of plunder and sites to ravage for the pirates and pirate hunters.

The ships are really well done and fully staffed!

European, Orient, and Arabic...what ship would you wish to command!?

This was the most fun participation game to play and the game club was on hand in period dress to keep things moving along!

My camera dumped the other participation games and photos of the gaming icons there.

Paint demos, new games, old games. New models. More forgeworld and titan class stuff than ever imaginable.

Warlord, Mantic, and Coolmini-or-not were readily available for any any question and any demo. Guild ball was very fun and Reaper had scores of bones and paint demos including the popular paint and take. Warlord had master painters showing all kinds of tricks and toys of the trade. Indie game companies and hobby shops were all over and all but a few hard core tourney players were supper friendly.

Mantic folk were pure fun to deal with and their excitement was infectious.

I hope the stars align again for another outing next year. I plan to stay longer and bring swim trunks for the hotel pool and hottub... and extra cash for food.

My only complaint was $2.75 for a small cup of coffee at the venue. I enjoyed my $8 beer more and the freebie stuff that came with it. I'll have to remember to pack my coffee maker for the next time! ;)

Sunday, April 3, 2016

I have finally had the time, vacation, and $ to go to a convention. Being of the sort that does not like huge crowds and big cities had its own sort of problems, like driving through Chicago to get to the venue at the Renaissance hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois. Which was just as bad as I remembered. Nonetheless, I arrived safely and was given some room at the suite that a few friends had purchased. I played a lot of demo games and seen scores of new stuff and quickly ran through the spending cash my wife allowed me to bring. Since I didn't arrive till Friday morning, I missed out on the venue grab bags which were really inpressive.

Besides the games and space for open gaming, I was a regular visitor to a merchant from Toledo Ohio that specializes in resale and trade of bits and models from other gamers, as well as new stuff. You could spend hours just pouring through the bins of minis and kits finding several gems.

Like the above Seraphim sister of battle, I found 5 to bring my own squad up to 10. In my rush to see more I mistakenly bought two with hand flamers, but as I don't do tournaments one will get a special paint and count as a traditional dual bolt pistol.

I also got the primary purchase of Star Wars Imperial Assault. This is a game I've wanted for some time. Han Solo, Chewbacca, and a trio of Rebel Soldiers were also purchased to give some immediate options.

I also picked up the IMEF and an Alchemist from the Reaper Bones line. I'll use the Scifi troops for Mercs gaming and generic Scifi skirmish. The Alchemist is going to join an Inquisitor retinue. The six will be my first in painting the new Bones stuff. I may pick up more IMEF if it turns out well. At $2.70 a model, it is well worth the experiment.

Aetherium is a new scifi game with very attractive models and interesting mechanics. The demo made my head spin and they use specialty dice with symbols that just seems to make things more complicated than it needs to be. I did like the models quite a bit. A vendor on a bike was selling beer there. I got a Guiness for $8 and also a grab bag, I selected the sniper figure which was packaged with the blue dice and the plastic flame tokens. Pretty tasty beer too! ;)

I scored TWO BFG space marine Strike Cruisers. Both models were $10 each! I also got some interceptors, bombers, and mines.

They had Epic, Mordenheim, Necromundia, and Inquisitor 54mm available for very reasonable prices.

The plastic bag contains a nearly complete valkyrie missing only the canopy glass, box and instructions but for $40 it was a bargin to give my Imperial Guard an air asset. It will be equipped with lascannon to hunt tanks and other air units.

I picked up this complete but broken Ork truck for $20. A deal! This kit is rather pricy, but this TLC needing model is a very welcome addition at a price that I approve of! ;)

Friday night found me at the gamer bring and buy. A fellow had this Texico starter box priced as marked. He hadn't even sat down and I was making the first purchase at his table. These starter sets retail for $65. This is also a faction that I was wanting too! The bargain of the convention for me!

Quite the haul and also a happy birthday gift from my wife to me. Although it isn't till the end of April, the convention and spending money was intended to be an early birthday gift. I didn't get the GW Calth box game nor the Deathwatch vs Genestealers one as the Starwars game was number one and the Calth set would require a lot of forgeworld and maybe another Calth to set up my 30k force proper. I am going to get some 30k, but that will happen later on after I settle on either Raven Guard and Dropsite massacre survivor force or the remnants of the Death Guard and other traitor legions that were deemed too loyal to turn against the Emperor.

I had a lot of fun at Adepticon and look forward to perhaps going again next year. We will have to see if military and vacation provides again!

I had a lot of mail this week. I'll blame part on my birthday Thursday, but two packages really stood out for the coveted "Holy ...

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about me

I'm an old soldier keeping up with the young bucks. When not serving my nation, I earn a living in security and occasionally sell some artwork. This keeps my wife, three girls, and boy in a tolerable fashion. Occasionally, they allow me to indulge in wargaming. In no particular order... Warhammer, 40k, Warmachine, ACW, Napoleonic, FIW, pulp, WW2, and several others...except modern, I'm Potawatomi and don't want the bad JuJu.Expect future photos( poorly taken) of minis, art, and games with my friends and kids. My children have taken a liking to supers, westerns, and zombies.